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by Brian Peacock » Thu Feb 08, 2018 4:01 pm
I actually think it's unfair to simply label all those who voted Leave as ignorant Trump-style voters - as if that somehow explains why they voted Leave. Like those who supported Trump, many in the more economically deprived areas of Britain had seen their wages go down in real terms over quite a while - and more so following the finacnial collapse of 2007-8. Their frustrations were genuine, and that frustration was ripe for tapping by the Tory Brexiteers and the right-wing fringe like UKIP, who solicited indignation (and in some cases outright hatred) while casting themselves as the only people offering a simple explanation and an equally simple solution - even if was the usual fascist tactic of blaming minorities and foreigners. Like Trump's opposition, the mainstream UK political parties were offering them nothing but things to stay the same - the economic regeneration promised by Cameron and Osborne had never arrived and austerity policies were cutting deepest into social support services and public infrastructure in those areas, and so the narrative that jobs, wages and opportunities were being syphoned off by economic migrants whose interests and well-being the EU was somehow making the UK put before the interest of the native population offered both something positive to vote for (jobs and wages) and something negative to vote against (the status quo). Of course, those narratives were deliberately rooted in lies and misinformation, and pushed by people who, basically, think that poor people are scum anyway, but it did the trick - just as it appears to have done in the US with Trump.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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